Good Bait (DCI Karen Shields #1)(13)
Karen pulled the curtains closed.
Her father’s face flickered like a passing light, then disappeared.
‘Cry, Baby, Cry’ and then ‘Good Night’, from Ramsey Lewis’s version of the Beatles’ White Album, piano and strings, accompanied Karen as she removed her make-up and undressed for bed. After just three pages, the book she was reading slipped from her hands and she was asleep.
8
Morning. Cold. Overcast. Upper Street and St Paul’s Road at a standstill, cars stacked up in both directions. Karen’s mobile rang just as she reached the counter in Caffè Nero. Juggling coins and loyalty card, she flipped open the phone as she gave her order.
‘Sorry,’ said the voice in her ear, ‘no lattes here. Must be a wrong number.’ The suggestion of a Midlands accent. Wolverhampton, West Bromwich. She guessed the man from Telecommunications Intel.
‘You’ve got something for me?’
‘Sugar? A sprinkling of chocolate?’
‘Information?’
‘A brand new SIM card, only five calls. Three to a Lesley Tabor, that’s Lesley with an E-Y, T-Mobile. Other two to an Orange phone registered to an Ion Milescu – I-O-N, Ion – Milescu, M-I-L-E-S-C-U. All the details in an email. On its way.’
‘Thanks. I owe you.’
‘Double espresso. Two sugars.’
‘Deal.’
*
By the time both addresses had been traced and verified, Mike Ramsden was on his way to Wood Green to check out a possible break in the investigation into the Derroll Palmer murder. A fresh poster campaign and some door-to-door leafleting had jogged the memory of a night cleaner who’d been making her way into work when the stabbing had occurred and she’d contacted her local station. Now it was a question of teasing out the details of what the woman had seen and heard, Ramsden only too aware of the need to proceed with caution. Push too hard and the danger is the witness becomes confused – either that or gives the answers he or she feels are wanted, only to falter later under crossexamination.
Karen picked up the phone. ‘Tim, a minute?’
He was wearing a loose-fitting casual jacket over a muddy green V-necked T-shirt, slim-line black trousers and blue-black suede shoes with a rubber sole.
Karen allowed herself a smile. Elvis and the Beatles in one.
‘Fancy a break from arms and ammo?’
‘Please.’
She brought him up to speed.
‘As far as we know, these were the last people he spoke to before he was killed. Just in case they know one another, I want them seen as close to the same time as possible. Less chance of either of them contacting the other. Concocting stories. Okay?’
Costello nodded.
‘I thought you could take the girl.’
Which meant Costello heading south across the river to a large comprehensive in Catford. Alien territory though he didn’t intend it to show.
Behind a fascia of bare, stunted trees and tall railings, its main buildings a fortress of darkening brutalist concrete, the school, Costello thought, had all the welcoming aura of a Soviet labour camp from the last century. Even the first fractures of grey sky, a timid leavening of blue, didn’t do a lot to help.
The youth who met Costello at the gate was chirpy enough, however, if a little disappointed not to find an officer in uniform.
‘You sure you’re police?’
‘Sure.’
‘You don’t look like no police.’
Costello was quietly pleased.
‘So what?’ the youth asked. ‘You here to nick someone, or is gonna be another of them lectures on drugs and gangs and knives an’ keepin’ off cheap cider?’
The deputy head, uncertain whether to shake Costello’s hand or not, settled for some vague arm flapping and a sideways nod of the head and ushered him along to what looked to have formerly been an office, but was now a depository for some outmoded filing equipment and a convocation of broken chairs.
‘You’ll be able to talk quietly in here.’
He left the door ajar and reappeared a few minutes later with the sixteen-year-old Lesley Tabor at his side.
‘All right, Lesley …’
The door closed.
Costello smiled.
‘Lesley, I’m Detective Sergeant Costello. Tim.’
No reply. Slouch shouldered, mousy haired, a school uniform of white blouse, navy jumper, navy skirt, grey tights, the girl stared determinedly at the scuffed tops of her shoes.
‘Lesley?’
Her face angled up an inch.
‘You’re not in any trouble, you realise that, don’t you? This is not about anything you might have done. Okay?’
Another inch, a first sight of pale eyes.
‘I just need to ask a few questions, that’s all. A few quick questions, then I’m out of here. Never to be seen again.’ He lowered his face, swiftly, towards hers. ‘Think you’ll miss me? When I’m gone?’
She looked at him then. Miss him? What was he on?
He winked, face creasing into a grin.
‘What say we get out of here? Go for a walk in the palatial grounds? Take in some of that winter sun?’
‘We can’t …’
‘Come on …’ Reaching past her for the door. ‘What are they going to do? Arrest us?’